1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to toothbrushes, and in particular to a toothbrush with removable brushing members.
2. Description of the Related Art
Toothbrushes are commonly manufactured including a handle and a brush head where the brush head holds bristles or tufts of bristles suitable for cleaning teeth. Typically, the bristles are moved against the teeth in a sawing motion to remove plaque and other materials. When the bristles wear or become too soft to be able to use for cleaning effectively, the toothbrush is discarded and replaced with a new toothbrush. This practice is wasteful as the bristles typically wear out long before the handle or the brush head of the toothbrush will. U.S. Pat. No. 6,145,152 discloses a toothbrush with a replaceable head construction. In such a toothbrush, the head of the toothbrush can be replaced without replacing the brush handle. Nonetheless, an individual has to purchase a new brush head when only the bristles are wore out.
In some countries, toothbrushes are not commonly used and other means for dental cleaning are employed. For example, in Saudi Arabia, a piece of soft wood, commonly known as sywack, is used by an individual to clean the teeth. Sywack, also referred to as siwak or sewak, is a soft wood containing fine fibers running along the length of the wood. The user holds a sywack stick in a hand and rubs an end of the stick against the teeth for cleaning the surface of the teeth. Unfortunately, when the sywack stick is used, only the front surface of the front teeth (i.e., the incisors and the canines) can be directly approached by the end of the sywack stick. The side and back teeth (i.e., the bicuspids and the molars) and the inside surface of the front teeth receive less cleaning because of the difficulties in placing the cleaning surface of the sywack stick adjacent to these areas. Accordingly, a solution is needed to allow a user to use sywack in a way that will effectively clean all tooth surfaces of both the front and the back teeth in an individual.
According to the present invention, a toothbrush with removable brushing members is disclosed. The toothbrush includes a handle, a brush head extending from the handle, and a first brushing member of soft wood. The brush head includes a bottom surface and a body together defining a cavity for receiving the first brushing member. The brush head further includes an anchoring member extending partially around the inside perimeter of the body except at a first end of the inside perimeter of the body. The first brushing member is inserted into the cavity at the first end and is slid along the cavity into the anchoring member. The anchoring member compresses against and bites into the sides of the first brushing member to secure the first brushing member in the cavity. In one embodiment, the toothbrush includes multiple brushing members.
In one embodiment, the brushing members are stubs made of siwak sticks. A siwak stick can be cut into stubs of a desired height and assembled into the toothbrush of the present invention so that effective dental cleaning can be carried out using siwak.